Composer Portrait: Nina C. Young – American Composers Orchestra

May 15, 2017 3:22 pm

American Composers Orchestra will present the world premiere of Nina C. Young’s Out of whose womb came the ice at its Parables concert on May 23, 2017, at Symphony Space.

Out of whose womb came the ice, featuring baritone David Tinervia and video by R. Luke DuBois, tells the incredible survival story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition of 1914-17. The piece looks at the expedition from the time the crew entered the Weddell Sea (Dec. 1914) to the sinking of the Endurance (Nov. 1915). The vocal and orchestra music focuses on the crew’s perception of the Endurance in relationship to their surroundings. She goes from being simply a ship, to a lifeline and memento that connects them to the world they left behind. Once she sinks, they are truly left alone. The visuals and electronics offer narrative elements drawn directly from documents of the journey: journal entries of the crew and images by expedition’s official photographer Frank Hurley.